Save the Chimps of Monkey Island!

Yes! We have no bananas, we have no bananas today.

One of the more upsetting stories in recent days concerns the threat of starvation facing the chimps of Monkey Island. 

The colony of over sixty individuals, is composed of ex-lab animals who played a vital role for many years in biomedical research for the New York Blood Center. Amongst other things, they helped scientists discover a vaccine for hepatitis and gain an international reputation for their work in the field of viral infections.

The NYBC, which established the apes in their idyllic new retirement home a decade ago, deep in the jungle of southern Liberia, has shockingly reneged on a promise to provide lifelong care by suddenly withdrawing the funds needed for supplies of fresh food and water, thus effectively leaving them to die.

This action has - not surprisingly - been condemned by numerous groups and charities and prompted a letter of moral rebuke from Jane Goodall. But, for me, it's not merely a matter of animal welfare; it's also a class issue to do with workers' rights in retirement, ensuring they can live out their days in freedom and security. It should thus also solicit full union support. 

These chimps are not wild animals; most spent decades as test subjects and part of an involuntary labour force. Some were born and raised in captivity. All are therefore fully deserving of compensation in my view, or a decent pension - particularly when this is essentially just the provision of a few bananas and maybe the odd mango. 

The $30,000 monthly cost of care is peanuts for a prestigious (and profitable) institution such as the NYBC which has hundreds of millions in revenue each year. They should not only be reminded of the written commitment made in 2005 by then director Alfred Prince to provide a sanctuary and look after the chimps, but legally obliged to honour such.

And it shouldn't require the evolution of a Caesar figure to ensure this ...

Note: those interested in the chimps of Monkey Island might like to view a short documentary from the makers of 20th Century Fox's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes available on YouTube: click here.

Those interested in the campaign to end the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research should click here.

  

Ours is the Day of Realization

Cover (detail) of the 1961 Penguin edition

The latest news from the Lawrence world is of a new adaptation of Lady C. made by the BBC and to be broadcast this autumn. Do we really need such? I don't know: it's debatable. What was once a vital and necessary book no longer seems so today. Nevertheless, the news has made me want to rethink the novel and, here, look again at Lawrence's surprising defence of it in the opening pages of his posthumously published essay A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. 

After briefly detailing the various pirated editions, Lawrence claims that he wrote and published his most notorious novel in good faith as an honest, healthy book containing an obscene litany of four-letter words that shock at first, but "don't shock at all after a while". Is this because we as readers are rapidly depraved by familiarity? No, says Lawrence, it's because such words only ever troubled the eye and ear and never really disturbed the mind which has evolved far beyond the body and its overly-sensitive organs prone to "violent and indiscriminate physical reactions" that threaten culture and society.

This, it has to be said, is a rather astonishing argument coming from Lawrence of all people. For it implies our sensory organs work independently of consciousness and that their perceptions are superficial, dim-witted, and dangerous. Lawrence thereby not only reinforces a damaging mind/body division, but unexpectedly opts to come down squarely on the side of the former. Indeed, he says quite openly in this astonishing essay that individuals without minds don't interest him and don't matter.

Modern men and women, he continues, are superior to the people of the past precisely because they are capable of a more sophisticated and relaxed relationship with language; they can assign to words "only those mental and imaginative reactions which belong to the mind" and thus not respond like crude savages to every provocation and stimulus without thinking. 

Thus, whilst Lawrence wants us to act, "the great necessity is that we should act according to our thoughts" and not allow ourselves to be so feeble-minded  that we are incapable of contemplating our own bodies (and the words that relate to bodily functions) without "getting all messed up" and carried away. In particular, Lawrence wants us to be able to think sex. 

This, he writes, is the real point of Lady Chatterley's Lover. It's neither a manifesto for sexual liberation nor an apology for adultery. Rather, it's a bold - and puritanical - attempt to realise sex in the head; "fully, completely, honestly, and cleanly". Lawrence knowingly aims at an explicit literary representation of desire; that is to say, he wants to transform the intensity of physical experience and erotic sensation into a pure piece of knowledge. 

Indeed, it's his conviction that a large number of people are happiest "when they abstain and stay sexually apart, quite clean: and at the same time, when they understand and realize sex more fully". He continues, in a startling passage that anticipates Baudrillard's thinking on the world that exists after the orgy:

"Ours is the day of realization rather than action. There has been so much action in the past, especially sexual action, a weary repetition over and over, without a corresponding thought, a corresponding realization. Now our business is to realize sex. Today the full conscious realization of sex is even more important than the act itself. After centuries of obfuscation, the mind demands to know and know fully. The body is a good deal in abeyance, really. When people act in sex, nowadays, they are half the time acting up. They do it because they think it is expected of them. Whereas as a matter of fact it is the mind which is interested, and the body has to be provoked. The reason being that our ancestors have so assiduously acted sex without ever thinking it or realizing it, that now the act tends to be mechanical, dull, and disappointing, and only fresh mental realization will freshen up the experience."

Lawrence, we might conclude, ultimately encourages us to spend less time in the bedroom and more time in the library. Lady C. is a book for thinking, nothing else: a call for a new form of chastity, it belongs to those thought-adventurers for whom the pleasure of the text is the greatest pleasure of all. 

I'll be extremely impressed if Jed Mercurio's new BBC adaptation manages to get this point across and isn't merely another lame and ludicrous work of pretentious soft-porn. We'll see ...


Notes

A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' can be found in the Cambridge Edition of  Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (CUP, 1993), pp. 303-35. The lines quoted from this essay here can be found on pp. 307-08. 

Readers might be interested and amused to know that later in the same essay, Lawrence flagrantly contradicts what he says here by arguing the complete opposite and indulging in a far more familiar anti-mind, pro-body rant; calling for greater harmony between the two, whilst still keeping them separate within a system of metaphysical dualism. As with Nietzsche, you can find textual support in Lawrence for almost any position; the challenge is not to determine the author's genuine view, but to critically examine all perspectives and realise that truth can never be fixed or given absolute moral-logical consistency. 

   

Nietzschean Notes on the Question of Power

The question of power is, for Nietzsche and those who write within his shadow, one of primary importance and the attempt to formulate and advance a critical conception of power beyond the reactive representations of moral idealism remains a real concern. That is to say, a conception free from what Lawrence describes as the superficial contempt for power which most of us experience due to the fact that we moderns only know dead power. Live or active power is worthy of esteem. It is not brute force, which is base and tied to bullying authority or what Deleuze identifies as emaciated forms of prohibition.

This is the key: to rethink power outside of currently accepted values and as more than that which restricts, prohibits, and denies. For power, as Foucault pointed out, has somewhat ironically been made subject to a repressive hypothesis and conceived as poor in resources, sparing in its methods, and incapable of invention. Only when we liberate our thinking on power will we see that what makes power so intoxicating is the fact that it doesn't only weigh on us as a force that says no; rather, "it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasures, forms of knowledge, produces discourse". 

In other words, power keeps us alive and in touch with one another acting as it does as the great productive network running throughout the social and political body. This is why Lawrence insists that power is not only prior to love, but that the latter is ultimately called into being by the former; "the first and greatest of all mysteries". 

Jesus failed because he didn't understand this; didn't experience the joy of an erection on a sunny day. Indeed, rather than thinking of power as a form of eternal delight, he taught that goodness is a form of impotence and passivity and evil is the active springing from energy which violates all human attempts to stabilize the free movement of life. 

Nietzsche was having none of this. Like Blake (and like any other poet worth his salt), he recognised that man needs what is most evil in him if he is to develop what is also best and most beautiful in him. Be happy, he says, and you will be good (once more reversing Christian teaching). But one is only happy when one feels oneself powerful and a little bit demonic via an expenditure (not an accumulation) of energy - shining like a tiny star with brilliant intensity, but to no end. 

Power is thus not something one can consciously seek out or seize and possess; power, rather, is that which can only be accepted as a gift flowing into us from behind and below - and flowing just as vitally away from us forever beyond our control. And humanism is everything that would limit this and accustom us to see the figure of Man behind every event and phenomenon.

Nietzsche's anti-humanist philosophy doesn't consider goodness or pleasure as its primary aim. Nevertheless, as indicated, his notion of joy connected to his concept of power allows for a new ethic to emerge. Or perhaps not so new: ethos anthropoi daimon, as Heraclitus would say ...

Note: this post is an extract taken from my study of Nietzsche's project of revaluation entitled Outside the Gate (Blind Cupid Press, 2010) and those who are interested in reading more on the subject of power and the politics of evil - as well as tracking down references - might like to consult part II, chapter 5 of this text. 

In Defence of the Cleft of Venus

 
Camel toe is an ugly name for a beautiful thing; what is known and revered within more enlightened cultures as the cleft of Venus or, if you prefer the pudendal fissure; i.e., the groove at the base of the mons pubis where it divides to form the lips of the labia majora. 

Personally, I would like all women to be proud of their genitalia - or even cheerfully indifferent. 

But, unfortunately, there is a constant and concerted effort to make them ashamed of their bodies and remind them that they are forever being scrutinized, ridiculed, and judged (both by men and by other women who have learned how to view themselves and members of their own sex in a perversely puritanical manner).   

The jeeringly misogynistic term camel toe plays a significant role in this, letting women know that all eyes are fixed on their most intimate areas and that their cunts - even in outline - ought to be a source of acute embarrassment; an obscene fashion faux pas far worse than visible panty line.

But the same people who invent this false concern for women to worry about, also provide a solution: a pair of knickers designed by Maggie Han and sold under the name of Camel No. 

Ms Han, after suffering from the problem herself and fearing that it might make people think she had a huge vagina, has created a new form of polyester and spandex underwear fitted with a modesty enhancement panel composed of odourless medical-grade silicone to prevent all unsightly creases or the impression of faulty anatomy. Now all women can be as smooth as a Barbie doll between the legs! 

One surely doesn't have to be a radical feminist or a courageous vulva activist to find this strangely depressing and offensive ...?

For whilst I don't mind if some individuals aspire towards plastic perfection and opt for designer vaginas neatly tucked away, I do object when this ideal is extended into a categorical imperative within a pornified and photoshopped culture obliging women and ever-younger girls to find their flesh dirty and inferior and confuse anatomical self-loathing with empowerment (i.e., when sexism and misogyny become internalized and normalized across gender).  

The Case of Farah Ann Abdul Hadi (and Her Pudendal Cleft)

Twenty-one-year-old gymnast Farah Ann Abdul Hadi recently won six medals, including two gold, for Malaysia in an international competition and one might have thought that this would be cause for universal celebration in her Southeast Asian homeland. 

Alas, 'twas not the case ...

In fact, far from being proud of her sporting achievements and sharing in her joy, the country's religious lunatics are up in arms about the revealing nature of her leotard and the fact that they could clearly see her pudendal cleft beneath the material.

For whilst most of us are perfectly happy when watching gymnastics to marvel at the lovely curves of the body, the supple young limbs, and, indeed, the tightness of the outfits worn, it seems that senior clerics are deeply concerned about female athletes exposing their aurat. 

And so the MP for Islamic Affairs has announced there is to be a thorough review, making it very clear that he too expects athletes in future to wear clothing that complies with the standards of decency required of all Muslims.

Added to his voice, was that of Roszida Kamaruddin, head of the girls' division of the National Muslim Youth Association, who in a statement said that whilst women should not be stopped from competing in sports, it's imperative that they cover up their nakedness and allow no risk of camel toe under any circumstances. To be modestly attired, she argued, needn't restrict an athlete's chances of success - although she was obliged to concede that it might be difficult to perform gymnastics in a burka.

Happily, not only has Miss Abdul Hadi bravely - and humourously - stood up to these idiots, but thousands of her fans and members of the Malaysian public have also taken to social media to express their support. 

Many in the media have also mocked the grey-bearded religious authorities for their mixture of puritanism and pervyness, with one journalist expressing his shock that men of such learning cannot seem to tell the difference between a professional athlete performing with skill and grace and a pole-dancing stripper wilfully shoving her genitalia into the faces of her audience.       

The Case of Helly Luv

Whether one chooses to think of her as a Kurdish Vera Lynn - sweetheart of the Peshmerga forces - or as a Middle-Eastern Shakira shaking her booty in the face of the Islamic State, the case of Helan Abdulla or, as she is better known, Helly Luv, is one that raises some problematic issues.

Let me first say this: the 26 year-old actress, singer and dancer displays real courage in the face of mortal danger. For this, she deserves our respect. Miss Abdulla is a beautiful young woman prepared to risk life and limb in order to achieve chart success and a film career. And she's someone who has experienced hard times; born in Iran during the Gulf War, she and her family were forced to flee first to Turkey before then seeking asylum in Finland where they were eventually granted citizenship. 

At eighteen, Miss Abdulla moved to LA in order to pursue her dream of stardom. One thing led to another, and, in 2013, she released a single under the name of Helly Luv. Risk It All synthesized Latin and Middle-Eastern rhythms into a catchy contemporary dance track that highlighted the plight of the Kurdish people. The song and accompanying video garnered a good deal of critical attention and millions of YouTube views. It also - predictably - brought death threats her way from Islamic militants.

Rather than back down in the face of these threats, however, Miss Abdulla released a follow-up single in 2015 entitled Revolution for which a still more controversial video was shot in an abandoned village near Mosul, where Kurdish militia were engaged in combat with IS fighters. In the video, Helly Luv is seen painting the word 'revolution' on a shell in red lipstick before personally firing it towards the IS front line just a few kilometres away.

I suppose it's this kind of thing that ultimately causes me problems. For the packaging of warfare inside a slick and glossy music video undoubtedly glamourises violence and has something worryingly fascistic about it. I'm perfectly happy for performers to express political views (even if such views are often naive and misguided), but I don't really want to see them posing with petrol bombs and surrounded by dancers carrying AK-47 automatic rifles.

Nor even, for that matter, do I want to see wild animals being exploited; so please, Helly, no more lions ...


Notes:

To watch the video for Risk It All click here.  

To watch the video for Revolution click here. 

To visit the Helly Luv official site click here.

In Defence of Weeds and Wildflowers

Bill and Ben The Flower Pot Men, with much loved friend Little Weed

If the word vermin is one that I find offensive and problematic (as explained in a recent post), so too is the term weed - and for similar reasons. For like vermin, weed is not simply a neutral term which objectively describes; taxonomically, it lacks any real botanical meaning or reference. 

Weed, rather, is a qualitative noun used to classify certain plants thought to be growing out of place and in a manner that opens the way for the discriminatory practice of weeding, or the use of herbicides by those green-fingered fanatics who insist on human order and the coordination of life (or what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung).

Like vermin, weed is therefore a morally pernicious term that passes judgement; a form of fascist death sentence passed on any wildflower that threatens to encroach upon our intensively farmed agricultural spaces, or dares to blossom in our well-maintained, lovely-looking, but essentially joyless gardens and parks.

It should be noted that the term weed is also applied to those people thought to be feeble, effeminate, or perhaps too bookish; those who might not only be regarded as poor physical specimens, but politically suspect and socially undesirable - persons in need of weeding out ...

It is thus another thoroughly vile term; one that I never use and do not like to hear used - unless it's by Bill and Ben, The Flower Pot Men, and with reference to their friend Little Weed whom they obviously love dearly, as do I. 


This post is dedicated to David Brock.

Vermin (With Reference to the Case of Gregor Samsa)

 Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, 

fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

The word vermin is an ugly term for an ugly phenomenon; a qualitative noun that doesn't innocently describe a type of unclean animal or a class of sub-human subject, but identifies, classifies, and characterizes as such. 

A morally pernicious term that is effectively a mortal judgement passed; a death sentence. For to designate as vermin is to make fit for extermination. 

It includes wild birds and beasts that are thought to carry disease or in some other way endanger or threaten to disrupt human enterprise with their destructive activities; pesky insects and parasites that swarm and infest; and, lastly, people perceived as dirty, despicable, and problematic (Jews, gypsies, immigrants, the homeless, the unemployed, and the poor in general). 

Thus, if when applied to animals the term betrays mankind's innate sense of supremacy or speciesism, when applied to our fellow men and women it manifests our murderous racism and xenophobia. 

The Nazis, of course, had a particular penchant for portraying their opponents and those they feared and despised as Ungeziefer and Untermenschen - i.e. not worthy of sacrifice or society; Lebensunwertes Leben. 

And so vermin is a word that makes me particularly uncomfortable; one that I would never use and do not like to hear used. It reminds me at last of poor Gregor Samsa; what happened to him might happen to any of us, so there's surely a lesson to be learned here.

On Fossils and Fundamentalists

Reconstruction of Tiktaalik rosae by Obsidian Soul (2012)

In 2006, a team of scientists announced their discovery of Tiktaalik rosae, a fossilized creature from 375 million years ago that soon became known as the fishapod, combining as it did features and characteristics of both water-living and land-dwelling animals.  

Tiktaalik was one of those rare and astonishing things: a fantastically well-preserved transitional species (or so-called missing link) and thus a highly significant find. Not surprisingly, therefore, Tiktaalik's discovery was greeted with great excitement within the scientific community and received extensive media coverage. 

In fact, the only people who weren't amazed and captivated by Tiktaalik were those individuals who, for crackpot religious reasons, reject not only the theory of evolution, but even the observable facts upon which the theory of evolution is based. Individuals who describe themselves as young earth creationists. 

Creationism, as the name implies, is the belief that the universe originates from an act of divine creation, as described in Genesis. This includes all life on earth. Whilst some creationists read this biblical creation narrative symbolically and vainly attempt to reconcile it with modern science, others, the so-called young earthers, prefer to take it literally and thus fervently deny evolution and insist that the world cannot be more than 10,000 years old - whatever the empirical evidence may be to the contrary.    

Young earth creationism is thus religious fundamentalism at its most unabashed and its most wilfully stupid. It's tempting to simply look away and pretend that such people are few in number and small in influence. Unfortunately, however, creationism - particularly in the United States - is a genuine concern and presents a very real threat to scientific education and innovation. The Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and Answers in Genesis (which, in 2007, established the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky) have more money and more power than one might like to think.

And so, one is obliged to confront and to challenge such stupidity; not in the hope that one might persuade creationists themselves to examine the known facts and reconsider their views in the light of such, but in the hope that some of those who might be swayed by the pseudo-science of intelligent design and the reassuring rhetoric of the faithful (God loves you and you are made in his image and living in a divinely ordered universe with purpose and meaning, etc.) will dare to keep their minds open and always ask for evidence.

Torpedo the Ark means valuing intellectual integrity over and above religious ignorance. And it means learning to love your inner fish in preference to the Jesus fish ...         

Notes:

Those who are interested in reading clear and concise counterarguments to the sort of nonsense put forward by creationists might like to see John Rennie's article in the July, 2002 edition of Scientific American - click here. 

Alternatively, click here for a transcript of Brian Dunning's podcast 'How to Debate a Young Earth Creationist' (Skeptoid # 65, September 11, 2007).

 

Those who would like to know more about Tiktaalik rosae should visit the University of Chicago website dedicated to this extraordinary fossil: click here.

 

The Case of Rachel Dolezal

The controversial case of Rachel Dolezal continues to fascinate and to challenge many of our ideas and misconceptions concerning race and the cultural construction of identity. 

Ms Dolezal, according to her parents, is a white woman of predominantly European descent who has been wilfully misrepresenting and disguising herself as an African American in order to advance her career and rise to a position of prominence within the black community. For not only did she become a university professor of African studies, specialising in the intersection of gender, race and class, but also president of her local NAACP.  

To be fair, Dolezal grew up in a family with adopted black siblings and attended a school in Mississippi where most of her friends and fellow pupils were black. She also married (and subsequently divorced) a black man with whom she has a child. But, of course, none of this serves to make her African American - anymore than does the deep-tanned skin, the clothing, the jewellery, or the make-up and hairstyling. Biologically speaking, she remains what she has always been: a white woman.

But since when has race ever simply been a question of biology? 

Thus, I have to admit I'm sympathetic to Dolezal and know precisely what she means when she suggests that her case is far more complex and multi-layered than many of her critics (or her parents) understand or wish to concede. This includes, for example, that great paragon of sensitive and sophisticated commentary, Piers Morgan, who brands Dolezal a lying, deluded idiot and is clearly outraged by the thought that race might be reconfigured as a question of style rather than blood and the fear that other essential binaries might in this manner also be problematized.

For Morgan - and he explicitly says as much - race is an either/or issue: you're either black or you're white. And Dolezal is 100% white by birth and breeding and can never be anything but white. Morgan thus brands her carefully crafted and performed identity fraudulent and a mockery; akin to wearing blackface. It would be laughable, he says, were it not so serious, concluding that Dolezal has "committed an appalling act of deception that deserves every heap of abuse now raining down on her head".

Of course, what those such as Morgan really wish us to understand is not that Dolezal is who and what she is no matter what she does, but that we are all born into fixed and fatal identities, regardless of what we learn, accomplish, or become in later life. And this would even include Barack Obama: he might be living in the White House and be the son of a white mother, but, according to those for whom race is an all-determining absolute, he remains a nigger for all eternity.     

In other words, racism begins and ends with a form of death sentence; the belief that colour is so much more than merely skin-deep and blackness entirely unrelated to artifice. 

     

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!

Lottie Collins                                               Tara King

Steed's exclamation of pervy joy when he discovers that he has been assigned Agent 69 as his youthful new partner - Ra-boom-de-ay! - is perfectly understandable, as, despite her critics, Miss King, played by the very lovely Linda Thorson, brings a fresh and flirtatious new dynamic to The Avengers. 

She's no Mrs. Peel - but then, who is?

However, it's not the female characters in a sixties spy-fi that I wish to discuss here, but rather the old music hall song to which Steed gives reference when playing on the name Tara.

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay is one of those silly songs with a long history and an amazing cultural resonance which continues to this day. Although first publicly performed in the American vaudeville show Tuxedo in 1891, the song became widely known in the version sung by Lottie Collins, star of the London music halls, the following year.

Having gained rights to perform the song in England, Collins commissioned new lyrics, a new arrangement, and - crucially - added a dance routine. According to contemporary reviews, she delivered the suggestive verses with deceptive demureness, before launching with real gusto into the bawdy refrain and her celebrated kick dance - an idiosyncratic and rather bizarre version of the cancan. It caused a huge sensation and immediately became her signature tune. 

Personally, however, the version of this song I find most interesting is the one given us by Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra in 1989, retitled as Waltz Darling and re-imagined in the context of the dance craze known as voguing. 

McLaren's version rather nicely returns the song to its black origins; origins which are often not known or simply not cared about. For Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay doesn't ultimately have its roots in London's music halls, but in a 19th century nightclub-cum-brothel run by Babe Connors in St. Louis, Missouri. And the song belongs as much to Mama Lou, as it does to Lottie Collins.

Note: those interested in viewing McLaren's video for Waltz Darling should click here.

In Defence of Giant Lovers

The Meeting Place (detail) by Paul Day 

POV shot by Stephen Alexander

Whilst I wouldn't say I'm a fan, I certainly admire much of Antony Gormley's sculptural work and share many of his criticisms and concerns to do with public art. 

I think he's right, for example, to argue that many pieces unimaginatively plonked down in our airports, stations, and city centres lack ambition or challenge and fail to address the question of what role statues might play in the 21st century. 

However, I'm disappointed to discover that he seems to particularly despise Paul Day's giant brass figure of two lovers embracing at St Pancras International Station, as I quite like it. The Meeting Place might be crude and ill-proportioned - might, in a word used by Gormley, even be described as crap - but it can still excite fetishistically, even if it fails aesthetically.

For not only does the female figure have very lovely calves and ankles, given emphasis by her high-heeled shoes and tip-toe posture, but she also invites an upskirt peek (although, alas, there's nothing to see). 

And then there's the fact that she's thirty-feet tall, which surely brings out the macrophile in many a man. I don't know why it is that giant women - or, more precisely, the thought of being crushed beneath their feet - is so ingrained within the pornographic imagination, but so it is and Day's sculpture obscenely exploits this fact (whether or not he consciously intended to do so).

So, to conclude, we might say this: that whilst The Angel of the North artistically intrigues as an erection, it doesn't solicit an erection; it makes one wonder, but it doesn't make one want to perv.     

     

On Lenny Henry's Knighthood

Photo of Lenny Henry taken in the 1970s by Graham Gough

See: The Black Country Album, (The History Press, 2012)

Comedian, actor, and all-round good egg Lenny Henry is to receive a knighthood from the Queen and he's clearly thrilled and delighted by the fact, describing how receiving word of it left him feeling as if he had been filled with lemonade.

On the one hand, I'm pleased that he's so chuffed and that his family and friends are proud of him. But on the other hand, I'm disappointed that this highly intelligent man - who is clearly sensitive to the politics of class and race - doesn't seem to have any qualms or reservations about accepting such a dubious honour and thereby lending his support to a system of privilege and patronage. 

Still apparently troubled by his experience as a teenage performer on The Black and White Minstrel Show in the 1970s, one worries that his acceptance on bended-knee of this hugely symbolic award will also retrospectively cause him shame and embarrassment and attract further criticism from more radical members of the black community.

Personally, I have the greatest respect for those individuals - whatever their ethnicity or social background - who, when offered the royal seal of approval and a place within the Established Order, have the integrity to refuse. Revolution always begins with the word No.

Lost in Democracy [A Letter from Greece] - A Guest Post by Maria Thanassa

In June 2013, the then Greek government unilaterally decided to shut down and dissolve the state broadcasting corporation (ERT). No prior public or parliamentary debate on the matter took place, nor was there any consultation with the staff.

The move was partly the result of adherence to the austerity measures imposed (demanding the sacking of some 15,000 state employees) and partly an attempt to end years of state media extravagance. The aim was to eventually re-launch the corporation as a smaller, independent broadcaster whose workings would be more transparent and thus open to much greater scrutiny.

At the time, the closure caused widespread anger and condemnation - viewed as it was as a blow to democracy and an assault upon freedom of expression. But now, two years later and the national TV channel has returned triumphantly to the airwaves.

And yet, when Syriza hail this resurrection of ERT from the electronic ashes as a victory of the people, one cannot help feeling rather nauseous. Especially when - despite its makeover - it's essentially the same corporation that, in the past, was associated with cronyism, corruption, and the squandering of public funds (not to mention dull programming).  

Of course, the past doesn't necessarily determine the future. And maybe it would be wise to defer criticism. But, I have to say, it really does stick in my craw when far-left populists portray themselves as the true defenders of democracy and implicitly characterize any who would challenge their authority as the reactionary enemies of freedom.


Athens-born Maria Thanassa is a teacher of Greek language, literature, and film. She has a Ph. D. from Kings College London and is the founder and director of EKON Arts. She also writes a blog that combines her love of baking, photography, and poetry. Readers who wish to visit Moonshine and Lemon can do so by clicking here.

Maria appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her contribution and, indeed, for all her help and technical support with this blog. 

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

And so Malcolm is revealed to have been deadly accurate in his characterization: Johnny Rotten is the Collaborator, happy to be pimped by Richard Branson and to whore first for Virgin Records and now for Virgin Money. 

Of course, deep down, we knew all along Rotten couldn't be trusted and the evidence has been steadily accumulating over the years. Thus what really interests is what Jamie Reid thinks of his still very powerful designs being used on the newly issued credit cards.

Is this, for Reid, the further continuation of the Swindle: one final attempt to slay the innocence and naivety of fans who so desperately want to believe in the integrity of their rock 'n' roll idols; one last lesson in how music makes you waste your time, your energy and ideas, and indeed what little money you may possess?

Perhaps. And it would be some comfort to think so. But probably Reid has no control over the use made of these images and he can only laugh (or cry) like the rest of us.

Carri on Sex Pistols ...

On the Japanese Love of Cuteness

Is there an important difference within Japanese language and culture between moe and kawaii? Does the former, for example, serve to describe what is emotionally experienced by a subject about objects designated as belonging to the latter as an aesthetic category?

Maybe this distinction could be drawn, but it seems to me that the two terms have become virtually synonymous; for that which is felt to be adorable in Japan is invariably cute, just as those things regarded as sweetly endearing invariably solicit feelings of powerful affection amongst dedicated fans and followers.

These feelings can, of course, become eroticised, but an explicit sexual element is not usually key; the relationship established with the (often fictional, not always human) object that one finds too darling for words, is romantic, ideal, and disneyfied rather than obscene or pornographic.

Having said that, there's obviously a fetishistic aspect to moe and one can't ignore the fact that the figure of the doe-eyed, nubile young girl is central within this genre. One might describe devotees of cuteness as bambisexuals who are more interested in imaginary petting and fantasy perving, rather than the actual penetration of bodies or committing sexual crimes involving real children or live animals.

Whatever we might think of this phenomenon, the fact is that kawaii is increasingly accepted in Japan as part of their culture and national identity; one that incorporates older elements of beauty, refinement, magic and myth into an aesthetic and a sensibility that is playful and postmodern in character.

And, ultimately, cuteness surely has to be preferable to the cruelty and asceticism that characterized imperial Japanese society; given the choice, I prefer Hello Kitty and Harajuku fashion over the way of the warrior. 
  

Masterchimp

Photo from PetsLady.com

In news that must surely delight Karl Pilkington, it's been announced by researchers that chimps possess the intelligence and the skills to cook and that, if given the choice, much prefer roasted veg and baked potatoes over raw food - even if they have to wait for their meals and thus defer gratification. Sadly, what they don't have is the secret of fire.

Such findings suggest that early humans or ape-men may have developed a taste for grilled meat much earlier in their evolution than was previously thought, thereby shifting the timeline for one of the crucial developments in human history - barbecuing. 

The transition from a world of raw food to one in which cooking became standard practice, is widely regarded as important because it allowed human beings to expand their diet and increase population size. It also allowed them to significantly reduce the time previously spent foraging for fruit and nuts and edible plants and thus be free to do other things; to daydream and exchange ideas, for example, or to invent new technologies, thereby enlarging brains and stimulating the development of mind.  

What I find particularly pleasing about this story, however, is that it further challenges notions of human uniqueness. Most gratifying of all is that it's one in the eye of those idiots on Masterchef who really think that what they are doing is so fucking exceptional. Now we know that, given a little encouragement, even a monkey can turn the oven on and serve up dinner on a plate!

Note:

Those interested in the research by Felix Warneken and Alexandra G. Rosati on the cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees should see the June 2015 edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Volume 202, Issue 1809): click here.

     

Omorashi

Kairi Omorashi by HarukoOmo 
deviantart.com

I suppose most of us have experienced the mildly perverse pleasure of a full-bladder and its eventual release, or felt a gently sadistic joy at witnessing a loved one's discomfort when they desperately want to piss in a public space, but are denied the opportunity to do so (the thought that they just might not make it home amusing and arousing in equal measure).  

But only the Japanese have given this variant form of urolagnia a specific name - omorashi - and have not only developed it as αn idea within the pornographic imagination, but built a fetishistic subculture upon it, thereby allowing like-minded individuals who delight in bladder desperation and panty wetting to exchange stories and images and to meet up if so desired. 

It should be noted, however, that for most devotees of omorashi an exchange of bodily fluids is not desired; they neither wish to piss on others, nor be pissed on by them. Nor do they want to see naked organs in close-up action, or hope that things might develop in an overtly sexual manner. 

For the obsession is ultimately with clothed incontinence and omorashi videos tend to focus on the garments worn by the participants; these invariably include schoolgirl uniforms, but films with women dressed as business professionals - looking dignified and in control, before shamefully succumbing to the need to urinate - are also very popular with certain male viewers. 

Now, whilst we might legitimately have concerns with some of the dubious sexual politics played out within the world of omorashi, it is, I think, relatively harmless and is frequently looked down on as too tame by hardcore fetishists for whom watersports involves far more edgy and unsettling elements. 

However, under current UK legislation I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that even omorashi is categorised as a form of extreme pornography and that peeing your pants has thus been made into a criminal offence!

Note: thanks to political writer and researcher - and defender of civil liberties - Nick Cowen, for his kind advice on this post.

Of Birds and Blondes (and One Fat Film Director)

 

The recent spate of attacks by crows on young blonde women jogging in a South London park, has once again highlighted the fascinating relationship - marked by corvid animosity - between a highly intelligent species of bird and a type of human being often unfairly portrayed as attractive and fun-loving, but not so smart.

Predictably, but, in this case, quite legitimately, the news media that covered this story all made reference to Hitchcock's 1963 classic, The Birds, a film loosely based on Daphne Du Maurier's short novel of the same name and deeply ingrained in our cinematic memory and cultural imagination. 

Of course, the events in Eltham Park don't quite match the full horror of what unfolds in Bodega Bay, but it's always perversely pleasing to recall Tippi Hedren making her film debut and being pecked to pieces for the sadistic pleasure of director and audience alike. 

Hedren, a former fashion model, was one of a number of so-called Hitchcock blondes, famed for their ice-cold innocence and Nordic beauty. When asked why he preferred to cast such women in lead roles, Hitchcock replied in a somewhat creepy manner that it was because bloody footprints are best seen against virgin snow.

Hedren portrayed the character of Melanie Daniels to perfection and Hitchcock was full of praise for his new protégé and plaything, noting her slightly glib humour and jaunty confidence, her sharpness of expression and attractive throw of the head. 

As for the actress, she initially found everything on set fascinating and wonderful. But she would later describe the week spent filming the final frenzied attack scene as the worst of her life. 

Before shooting, Hitchcock had assured her that only mechanical birds would be used. Hedren found herself, however, in a tiny bedroom having prop men in thick protective clothing fling dozens of live gulls and crows directly at her. Admittedly, their beaks were held shut with rubber bands, but their wings and feet were free to beat and to scratch. When one of the birds gouged her cheek, narrowly missing an eye, Hedren understandably burst into tears and collapsed, dizzy with fear and exhaustion. 

When a doctor recommended that she be given a week to rest and recover, Hitchcock protested. Angered and outraged by this, her physician was moved to ask whether the director wanted to kill his leading lady. Hitchcock's silent response to this is, I suppose, open to interpretation. But what is for sure, is that Hitchcock certainly wanted to possess and intimidate Hedren and ultimately the real horror of this tale lies in the abuse of a young woman by a fat man with power, not by a few angry birds.


Note: thanks to Maria Thanassa for bringing the story of the crow attacks in Eltham Park to my attention and suggesting that it might make the basis for an interesting post on this blog.        

On Pareidolia and Prosopagnosia

Still from the classic silent movie Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

Torpedo the Ark means: Take that Man in the Moon!

Pareidolia is the psychological term for the all too human propensity to see ourselves - particularly our own grinning faces - in nature. A well-known example of this is the man in the moon phenomenon. 

In other words, pareidolia is the visual form of apophenia or the will to meaning that interprets purely random patterns or events as being in some way significant, thereby displaying evidence of intelligent design, or the hand of God. 

It's thus thanks to pareidolia in combination with other forms of apophenia - or what Michael Shermer has termed patternicity - that primitive mankind was able to organize chaos and make the universe not only intelligible, but also loving and divine; a manifestation of the sacred. Even today, there are believers who see the face of Jesus on a slice of burnt toast.        

And this is why torpedo the ark means rejecting all forms of correlationism and all attempts to locate agency, whether in heavenly bodies, or loaves of bread. In fact, I'm only half-joking when I say that the philosopher today is obliged not only to cultivate innocence and forgetfulness, but also prosopagnosia or face blindness. 

Perhaps then - and only then - will we be able to know objects as fully independent of ourselves.

Note: I am grateful to Azucena Gómez for suggesting this post and bringing some of the technical terminology to my attention.  

Love Unlocked

A happy couple on the Pont des Arts before the removal 

of the love locks on June 1st 

The decision taken by the municipal authorities to remove the hundreds of thousands of love locks from the Pont des Arts is a triumph of practical common sense over romance; evidence that even in Paris health and safety matters more than affairs of the heart. 

Having said that, there was something rather frightful about all that congealed weight of feeling (be it sincere or otherwise) and the obscene brass symbolism of l'amour. It reminded one of how gangrenous and burdensome love becomes when it is fixed in place and full of insistence. As one commentator wrote, the bridge was starting to groan under this display of collective egoism. 

But, on the other hand, one has to be careful not to be snobbish or superior here; I certainly don't pretend or wish to imply that love as I experience it is in some way more authentic, more noble and more beautiful because it doesn't come with a lock and key. Nor do I find the metal locks ugly as things in themselves; when glittering in the sunshine they constitute a rather pretty and impressive form of three-dimensional graffiti or folk art. 

So, in sum, I have mixed feelings about their removal. Probably, if it had been up to me, I would have left them and allowed the bridge to collapse in suicidal complicity, bringing this love story to the tragic conclusion that it deserves.  

Breast Ironing

Just as the Western world finds the courage and strength of conviction to confront the disgusting practice of female genital mutilation, news emerges of an almost equally horrific form of cultural cruelty originating in the Central African Republic of Cameroon.

Breast ironing is the attempt to suppress the development of breast tissue in pubescent girls by using hard and often heated objects to literally flatten any signs of such development. Usually, this is carried out by the girl's mother who does so in the belief that it will protect her child from sexual harassment, rape, and early pregnancy that would tarnish the family name and prevent the girl from completing her education. 

Thus, as so often with the moral stylization of the flesh, breast ironing is a bad act carried out with good intentions; i.e., a form of violent physical abuse inflicted in the name of love.

The most commonly used implement for breast ironing is a wooden pestle, normally reserved for the pounding of tubers. Sometimes, however, other tools are used, including coconut shells, grinding stones, and hammers that have first been heated over coals. It is widely practiced throughout Cameroon and is also found in neighbouring countries and millions of girls have had to endure this extremely painful torture which can have serious and lasting physical and psychological effects.

And now, thanks to mass immigration and multiculturalism, breast ironing is here in Europe too, imported by the Cameroonian diaspora keen to retain their native traditions. 

Ultimately, there's very little to be said - even though there is clearly an urgent need for something to be done. One might suggest that those parents who are so concerned about protecting the honour of their female offspring that they are prepared to crush budding breasts and/or mutilate genitalia shouldn't be allowed to have baby girls in their care. But this might only lead some to mistakenly think I'm condoning female infanticide, which is a whole other (if clearly related) problem.

It shouldn't be, but, unfortunately, the words It's a girl are often heard in many parts of the world as a license not only to maim, but to kill. 

Eve Teasing

blanknoise.org

So-called Eve teasing is a phenomenon by no means limited to South East Asia, but the men of this region have gained a particularly shameful and ugly reputation for sexually harassing and assaulting young women who have simply asserted their right to venture into a public space, catch a bus, or go to school. 

It might begin with a series of crude remarks, vulgar gestures, and inappropriate touching, but such behaviour fosters an intimidating environment in which far more serious acts of sexual violence can blossom. Indeed, I'm sympathetic to feminists who not only see a direct link between Eve teasing and rape, but classify the former as a minor form of the latter.

Whatever else it is, Eve teasing is certainly not just a type of harmless flirtation - although, arguably, it might be characterized as a form of courtship disorder, endemic in societies in which female independence directly challenges sexist norms, patriarchal traditions, and misogynistic values.

And this, it is important to note, by no means just refers us to Muslim societies. In fact, in a recent poll conducted amongst gender specialists around the world, the country that  was nominated as the worst place to be a woman amongst the G20 nations was not Saudi Arabia, as one might have thought, but India.
  
Further, following several high profile cases involving tourists, several countries, including China, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Russia and the United States, have issued advisory notices to their citizens alerting them to the rape epidemic across this country so loved (and so romanticized) by so many. The UK government posts this on its website:

"Women should use caution when travelling in India. Reported cases of sexual assault against women and young girls are increasing: recent sexual attacks against female visitors in tourist areas and cities show that foreign women are also at risk. British women have been the victims of sexual assault in Goa, Delhi, Bangalore and Rajasthan and women travellers often receive unwanted attention in the form of verbal and physical harassment by individuals or groups of men."

It further warns: 

"If you are a woman travelling in India you should respect local dress codes and customs and avoid isolated areas, including beaches, when alone at any time of day. Avoid travelling alone on public transport, or in taxis or rickshaws, especially at night."

This not only causes me to wonder why any woman would choose to go there at this time, but also think it might be worthwhile re-examining the case of Miss Adela Quested and the young Indian doctor, Aziz. Was her charge that he sexually assaulted her in the Marabar Caves really just the hysterical fantasy of a silly, self-absorbed girl, as the majority of (mostly male) critics have insisted ...?


Notes: 

Those interested in knowing more about the growing resistance amongst the women of India to Eve teasing and other forms of sexual violence might care to visit the Blank Noise website: click on the address beneath the image above.

Those interested in reading the full advice given by Her Majesty's Government on issues of safety and security to persons who plan on visiting India, click here. 

Those interested in knowing more about the controversial case of Adela and Aziz should see E. M. Forster's 1924 novel, A Passage to India. 

Dinggedicht

Trümmerfrau by Max Lichnit

What is this thing?

This thing that doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't speak, doesn't clean,
but continues to drag itself around, hanging-on, with tears in its eyes.

This thing that sits touching its face, as if seeking familiarity
with its own crumbling features.

This thing that fears silence, fears solitude, fears darkness, fears death,
and yet doesn't remember how to live.

This thing, this ruin, that is and is not meine Mutter.


SA

Why the Dalai Lama is Just Another Holy Fool

 

I wouldn't say I hate the Dalai Lama with the same degree of intensity as, for example, I hate Mother Teresa or Gandhi, but there's certainly something about him that I dislike and mistrust: the ghastly monastic robes; the perpetually smiling face (memorably described by James Snell as that of a dozy kitten); the fact that he likes to endorse the spiritual pretensions of Hollywood celebrities and hold the hands of royalty; the cynical manner in which he mixes Bambi-morality with calls for a return to a brutal theocratic feudalism under his own semi-divine leadership, etc.

Not surprisingly, Christopher Hitchens brilliantly outlines the case against him. But an equally interesting critique is by Pascal Bruckner, in which he contrasts Mr Tenzin Gyatso's astonishing success as a master of public relations and self-promotion, with his relative failure politically: 

"Coming out of exile like an Asian Moses descending from his Himalayas to reveal the essential truths ... he has transformed himself into a worldly guru ... a sort of peddler specializing in ... amiable twaddle precisely calibrated to the taste of European  and American audiences." 

He came to champion the cause of his people suffering under Chinese occupation and to impart the wisdom of the East, but, whilst the Dalai Lama succeeded in making a meek and mild version of Buddhism fashionable, he emptied the former of any real urgency or history.

Being generous, one might conclude not that he sold out or betrayed the Tibetan people, but that he was, as Bruckner suggests, overly keen to be a performer in our own image.

  
 
See: Pascal Bruckner, Perpetual Euphoria, trans. Steven Rendall, (Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. 59-61.

 

Lovely Lesbians

 Photo of June Miller by Brassaï (c. 1933)

Henry Miller's posthumously published novel Crazy Cock, was originally entitled Lovely Lesbians - this with reference to his beautiful second wife, June, and her lover, the somewhat mysterious figure of Jean Kronski, fictionally portrayed by Miller in the above work as the arts-loving and rather dapper dyke, Vanya.

Miller met June in 1923, when she was still only 21 and working as a dancer in New York. He immediately fell in love and abandoned his first wife and child in order to be with her. They married in the summer of the following year and their relationship is central to much of his work, including the two Tropic books and his semi-autobiographical trilogy, The Rosy Crucifixion.     

In October 1926, at June's insistence, Jean moved in with them. This allowed her to cultivate an intensely close relationship with the latter and she seemed to enjoy Jean's affections more than her husband's, much to Miller's chagrin. Not surprisingly, things soon came to a head and in April 1927 June and Jean left for Paris together.

Unfortunately, things didn't work out very well for the lovely lesbians and June returned to her old life with Miller in New York just three months later. As for Jean Kronski - if that was in fact her name - she is thought to have committed suicide in an insane asylum c.1930.

Now, I'm no expert on Miller, so I don't really know what he meant by the phrase lovely lesbians - one suspects he was using it in a sardonic manner, as I can't imagine he was entirely happy about the affair between his wife and Miss Kronski (though, that said, he didn't seem to mind later sharing June with Anaïs Nin, who was as sexually and creatively obsessed with her as Miller himself) - but it appeals very much because, for me, there is always something lovely about lesbians, wherever they are on the Sapphic spectrum; from the most feminine of lipstick lesbians, to the most butch or bullish of dykes.      

    

Does saying this make me a malesbian perchance? Not really. For this is a problematic term, for several reasons. Let's just say it demonstrates that I'm very much oriented towards women, feel happier in their company than in the company of men, and that Torpedo the Ark is an openly feminist blog which shares the view subscribed to by American poet and activist Audre Lorde that feminism fundamentally emerges out of a lesbian consciousness, whether or not one actually sleeps with women.

Cocksuckers and Communists

As everybody knows, the witch-hunts in Cold War America during the early 1950s, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, were not directed against individuals who liked to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight, but those who were - or were suspected of being - communists or left-leaning fellow-travelers.

But what is rather less well known is that McCarthyism was not merely a paranoid political response to the perceived Soviet infiltration of the US, but also manifested a phobic concern with homosexuality as an equally threatening and related form of subversive deviance.

Thus it was that the Second Red Scare was also tinted with lavender. In fact, the so-called Lavender Scare resulted in far more people being persecuted and hounded out of their jobs (or worse) than the more widely reported anti-communist campaign.

Both queers and reds were regarded as profoundly Un-American - that is to say, anti-God, anti-family, and anti-wholesomeness or what we might term apple-pie morality. They were believed to be actively conspiring to bring about a revaluation of sexual and cultural values and the overthrow of government.

For McCarthy and his supporters, someone such as Harry Hay was virtually the embodiment of evil and the link between political radicalism and perversion was proven beyond any shadow of a doubt. On one occasion McCarthy even brazenly announced to reporters that anyone who opposed him had to be either a communist or a cocksucker.

Happily, those of a lavender persuasion not only survived this ugly period in American history, but were strengthened by it. For ironically, the forerunners of today's LGBTQ movement came out of the McCarthy era; the Mattachine Society was founded in 1950, for example, followed by the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955.

As for old Joe, he died a broken man aged forty-eight, in 1957, from acute hepatitis (exacerbated by alcoholism), having been censured by the Senate three years earlier and seen his power and influence dramatically wane. As President Eisenhower is believed to have quipped, McCarthyism had become McCarthywasm. 


Notes

See: David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare, (University of Chicago Press, 2004). 

A feature-length documentary by Josh Howard based on the above work is presently in post-production.